Playing TRIZ (Volume 2) – More Games and Cases Fostering Inventiveness

Christian M. Thurnes, Claudia Hentschel, Frank Zeihsel

Invention is sometimes said to come to an end, even more to a bad end – no way! The moment, invention is thought as something finite, the end point of mankind would be … Read More

TRIZ University Takes Off

Editor

As increasing numbers of people worldwide are living under lockdown, one of the world’s leading academics in TRIZ and Systematic Innovation has launched an online training course for businesses and individuals across the globe. You can find it at … Read More

Oxford Creativity achieves global sales on lockdown learning, helping to problem solve pandemic

Last week, Oxford Creativity, an innovation training and problem-solving company smashed their targets and sold out places for their first online learning course helping Global technical teams work together. Delegates tuned in from all around the globe including Malaysia, France, … Read More

Biology – Sea Urchin Spines

Darrell Mann

For the first time, a team of Australian engineers has modelled the microscopic mechanics of a sea urchin’s spine, gaining insight into how these unusual creatures withstand impacts in their aquatic environment.

The skeleton of the purple-spined sea … Read More

Generational Cycles – Woodstocks

Darrell Mann

We are stardust We are golden And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden

The Woodstock festival of 1969 was a defining moment in the coming-of-age of the Baby Boomer generation in the US. … Read More

Case Study: I Want A List, I Don’t Want A List

Darrell Mann

I admit it, I’m a list-demon. I have a quadruple-hierarchy list structure: a day list, a month list, a year list and an ‘important, but doesn’t fit anywhere yet’ list. The system has evolved over the course of … Read More

Patent of the Month – Self-Replicating Materials

Darrell Mann

Here’s one we first started tracking back in 2012. Most ‘self-‘ solutions are interesting. This one seemed to offer up more than most. The ultimate factory! Now, as of December 8, the patent has been granted. US9,206,471 was … Read More

Innovation of an agricultural system to harvest and sow simultaneously using TRIZ

Jaime Cuauhtémoc Negrete

Abstract

At present, in Mexico the food is not enough that its inhabitants demand and there are large sectors that do not have adequate access to them. Among other things, this situation contributes to the degradation of … Read More

Rethinking R&D Strategy

Darrell Mann

“Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” Wernher von Braun

Look at most R&D strategies and one of the most likely things you will see is how incremental and focused on … Read More

Biology – Long-Distance Spider Travel

Darrell Mann

On October 31, 1832, a young naturalist named Charles Darwin walked onto the deck of the HMS Beagle and realized that the ship had been boarded by thousands of intruders. Tiny red spiders, each a millimeter wide, were … Read More

Generational Cycles – Wednesday Addams

Darrell Mann

Twenty-six years after their last big-screen outing, the Addams Family is back in theatres this month. And yes, still creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky (now also digitally animated). The family, created by the cartoonist Charles Addams, has been … Read More

Patent of the Month – Negative Refractive Index Meta-Materials

Darrell Mann

Patent of the month this month takes into another foray into the realm of so-called ‘negative materials’. Or, as seems to be becoming more popular, ‘left-handed materials’. Which has a certain ring to it, if you happen to … Read More

Innovation Capability Maturity & Complexity

Darrell Mann

To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, ‘all happy enterprises are alike; each unhappy one is unhappy in its own way’. About six months ago now (time flies!) we assembled our first version of the Complexity Landscape Model (CLM) (Reference 1). … Read More

Contributions to the further development of TRIZ

Dietmar Zobel, Wittenberg

Preliminary remarks by the publisher

In developing TRIZ as an inventive methodology, G.S. Altshuller made the explicit claim to develop „Creativity as an exact science“ (the title of one of his books). The scientific core of the … Read More

The Operationally Excellent Sinking Of The Titanic

Darrell Mann

One of the most enduring workshop features in the TRIZ community is the ‘save the Titanic’ exercise first conceived by Ellen Domb. Nominally it is about resources, and as such often gets used alongside the 9-Windows tool. In … Read More

Biology – Owl Neck

Darrell Mann

It is one way of seeing the world from a different point of view. This short-eared owl made sure to turn heads, by swivelling its face completely upside down. The bird was captured by wildlife photographer Alain Balthazard … Read More

Generational Cycles – Teen-Movie Re-Makes

Darrell Mann

Many would say that there are only three different films. Some would say seven. Either way, that’s never stopped film companies from making thousands of the damn things. Occasionally, they run out of ideas so badly, they decide … Read More

Who Do They Think You Are? (Measuring Mental Gears)

Darrell Mann

Take a look at the following list of words:

Now imagine someone who knows you really well looking at the same words. Which is the word or phrase they would choose to best describe how they see … Read More

Patent of the Month – Bioelectrochemical Bioremediation

Darrell Mann

Some months are better than others. Some weeks are better than others. The first week of September saw a swarm of below-average patents. The second week, on the other hand gave us several candidates for this Patent of … Read More

The ABC(-M) Of Workshop Design

Darrell Mann

Most times people tell us they ‘get’ something, it means they don’t. I hear the word all the time with S-Curves. Everyone, it seems, these days ‘gets’ the theory, but the moment they’re put in a situation … Read More